Sunday, May 13, 2012

One Year in Tech - An Eternity

As some of my closer colleagues know, it was a little over a year ago that I decided to drop my SEO, viral advertising and Social Media consulting ... for a 'day job'.

Things are changed exponentially on the tech landscape during that time. It's truly amazing and continues to be fascinating.

There were many factors that led to my decision but the most prevalent was a series of 'high intensity' clients and just a much needed change of pace ... after three decades spending way too much time in front of a computer. (My wife's desire for a little sanity around here played as well :).

I e-mailed a few friends in the industry and the response was interesting. I wasn't the only one. The invasion of self-proclaimed experts, many of whom knew next to nothing, was driving a lot of top-shelf Internet marketing and PR people crazy.

While the challenge was always a chase and satisfying, the price you pay in stress can be high, whether in-house or independent. I've done both.

As I have since the early days of the PC, I still spend a couple of HOURS a day staying current with the trends, valuations, changes in search ... and the tech landscape. The only surprise was that Google had shutdown Google for domains, and the parked domains that I had owned for years stopped creating a secondary income 3 weeks ago.

No biggie. I must have missed the memo :)

The reason for this post is simple.

While I have stayed mildly active on Twitter, Google+ and numerous other places (rarely on Facebook but that's another story), I have received short notes and comments like "Where did Charlie go?".

Happy to say my family and I are doing fine. I'm still very much here and doing what I enjoy.

Over the summer, I've decided to reach out to some of my long lost tech and marketing friends for no other reason than to say Hi and see how you're doing. Many of you can probably guess who you are.

I may even get totally carried away ..... and do a piece right here about today's tech valuations ... and the continuation of the 'tech paper economy'. I don't know about you but Apple's market cap along with Facebook's coming IPO remind me a lot of the AOL acquisition of Time Warner. Hmmm...